Environmentalists, scientists, journalists, doomers, and politicians all intensively focus on climate change as the source of our existential threat.
This over-focus leads to a misapprehension of the dangers we face, and a harmful belief that if we can just “fix” climate change then everything will be fine and society can carry along its merry way.
Granted, the climate catastrophe is enormous and dire. But if we “solved” it, we would still be on a pathway to ecological collapse; just a bit more slowly. Apart from what we are doing to the climate, we are consuming everything on the planet, filling the world with contaminants, marginalizing habitats, collapsing biodiversity, and literally eating much of the world.
Fossil fuel consumption and climate change accelerate and exacerbate many of these issues, but eliminating fossil fuels or geoengineering away climate change would not solve any of them. In fact, those (albeit unlikely) actions could make a number of these other problems worse.
Ecological Collapses We Are Facing
Here are some easily-verifiable statistics (as of late 2026):
- There are currently 8.3 billion people on the planet. The way people live uses up nature at 1.7 times the rate that it can regenerate. (If everyone lived like the average American, it would be 5.1 times the rate.)
- 95% of mammal biomass on the planet is now just humans and livestock (up from 50% before the start of the industrial era, eg ~1850).
- All wild land mammals now make up just 2% of mammal biomass. About half of that is just deer and boars. All other wild land mammals, from mice to elephants, make up just 1%.
- While 7/10 of Earth’s surface is water, marine mammals, from otters to whales, make up ~3% of the world’s mammal biomass.
- Over 70% of all bird biomass on Earth is poultry.
- Pollinator populations are threatened and/or crashing (not just honeybees, but all pollinators). This is in part due to climate change, but also due to habitat loss, pesticide use, pollution, and invasive species.
- Just since 1970 (well into the industrial era), there has been an 85% decline in monitored freshwater species populations.
- From 1970-2020, ocean vertebrate populations declined by 56%.
- Humans have destroyed a third of the world’s forests, and only 30% of what remains is old-growth (primary) forest. We are destroying another 2.5% of the world’s forests each decade. (Some of that lost forest is later replaced, but the biomass from the removed trees is still lost.)
- 75% of all land on Earth has been significantly altered by human activity, and 50% of all habitable land is used for agriculture (and most of the cropland is highly-destructive monocultures).
- A third of all soils on Earth are moderately to highly degraded.
- At least 35% of all wetlands have been lost since 1970.
- Biodiversity is crashing, habitats are disappearing, and nearly 50,000 assessed species are currently threatened with extinction.
- Put another way, of all assessed species, 28% of them are threatened with extinction.
- But less than 10% of described species have been assessed for extinction risk.
- There are many, many (likely many millions of) un-described/unknown species. We have no idea how many of those are being lost.
- Light pollution reaches into the most remote wilderness, and noise pollution (from ships) reaches the deepest parts of the oceans.
- Humans currently produce 2.1 billion tonnes (that’s over 4.6 trillion pounds) of municipal solid waste (aka garbage) each year… that means that on average each man, woman, and child produces over 4.5 times their own bodyweight in trash each year.
- By 2050, annual trash production is projected to rise to 3.8 billion tonnes (well over 8.3 trillion pounds). Even adjusting for projected population growth, that has each person producing over seven times their body weight in garbage each year.
- 6.7 kg (14.8 lbs) of plastics pollution are released into the environment each year for each human on the planet.
- We have contaminated every ecological niche on Earth with microplastics; and plastics are now considered part of the geologic cycle.
Where We Are Headed
None of these problems get solved if we “just fix” climate change. If we magically switched to all solar power and all electric cars today, all of these catastrophic problems would still continue to worsen. We would continue to consume and pollute everything on the planet, and biodiversity would continue to crash.
These problems stem not from fossil fuel consumption, but from the modern lifestyle and the economic and political systems that support it.
Our race toward collapse isn’t just about what kinds of cars we drive, it’s about the fact that we drive cars. It’s not just about what methods we use to generate power, but about how much power we use and all the destructive things we do with it. It’s not only about whether or not we eat meat but also about where our food comes from (distant industrial monoculture farms/pastures).
Collapse isn’t about climate. It’s about how we as individuals and as a society consume… and consume… and consume.
If we really want to backpedal from collapse, we need to change where we live, the habitations we live in, the objects we use, the activities we engage in, and the source of our food.
The choice is either to make those radical changes or to crash the human population. By not choosing the former, we are opting to have the latter forced upon us.
Integration Centers as a Path Forward
This is the objective of the Integration Center project: to create a regenerative way of living that is accessible to everyone.
This path is not unique to Integration Centers. Ecovillages are on this path as well, as are permaculture designs in general. Though while these other projects are useful steps toward healing the planet by healing our impacts on it, the Integration Center model also puts forth that society itself needs to be healed, as do the individuals who make up society.
Greed — the desire for more stuff and for power over other people — lies at the root of our destructive lifestyle. The Integration Center tests the hypothesis that the root of greed is our disconnection from our food.
These Centers not only re-connect people with their food, but also work to provide a healing space so that people in and outside of the Center can recover from the damage modern life has done to them. In this way, centers aim to help people find balance not just with nature, but with their own desires.
While Integration Centers spread healing and learning out into the mainstream culture, they also are designed to replicate. In this way, their mission can continually reach more and more people.
Is There Still Time?
The statistics given above are dire, and on top of all of those calamities, the climate crisis is accelerating at a deeply alarming rate. We are now approaching numerous tipping points and exceeding planetary boundaries.
Whether or not we can turn the tide is highly debatable. We would need projects like the Integration Center model to expand rapidly, starting right now; and even then there would still be some doubt as to whether or not we can recover in time.
This project takes two synergistic views toward this issue.
Crisis Drives Change
As the climate crisis accelerates and as all of the above factors continue to worsen, humanity will be facing larger and larger crises and catastrophes.
We are already seeing major droughts that are having severe impacts on crop yields and on cooling abilities of power plants. Heat waves and wild fires are proliferating, and we are approaching a point where there will be times when some parts of the world will be unlivable due to excessive heat. These are just examples of the sorts of calamities that are approaching (actually, already starting).
As more and more catastrophes beset us, there is likely to be a greater desire to make substantial changes. As more people start to feel that desire, there may be significantly more interest in changing lifestyles, such as per the Integration Center model.
The Solution Is Also the Escape
Regardless of whether or not there is enough time to reverse the crises that we face, the people who live sustainable lifestyles in regenerative ecovillages will be the ones most likely to survive and potentially even thrive.
Integration Centers that have carefully selected their parcel of land, implemented a solid permaculture design, and thoughtfully worked out their polycrisis response plans will be well positioned. They will have fresh water and abundant food, and will be sustaining a population of pollinators and wildlife around them that will help them persevere. They will be outside of urban density, and they will not be reliant on the outside economy to sustain.
Even so, the unpredictability of local catastrophes, regional disasters, and global conditions make the survivability of any one Integration Center questionable. But their residents still stand a far better chance than those in mainstream society, especially in urban areas.
Anyone wishing to start an Integration Center can follow the open business plan presented on this site. It takes money and effort to get started; so those who lack the former are still encouraged to look into joining an existing project. (Alternately, one can look into joining other ecovillages.) There is no cost to join, just requirements that one be dedicated to the mission.
Further reading: Effective Action for the Polycrisis
Further reading: Healing Individuals, Society, and Nature